


Little Consequence

by coreopsis



Category: Oz - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1999-12-27
Updated: 1999-12-27
Packaged: 2017-10-18 00:16:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/182894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coreopsis/pseuds/coreopsis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a little Sean Murphy riff on the nature of COs and prisoners, with Ryan providing a chorus on where a hack goes when he leaves Oz</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Consequence

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Nicole, Mouse, and Melissa for the beta and helping me see what was missing. Note from 2011: I can't remember why it seemed so important to spell Ryan's last name with two L's instead of one. I just vaguely recall it was A Thing.

"See you tomorrow."

The slam of a locker door pulled Sean Murphy's attention away from his shoes and he gave Diane Whittlesey an absent wave. He watched her flip her blonde hair over the collar of her jacket and leave the locker room.

He finished tying his sneakers and pulled his jacket off the hook. For a moment, he sat on the bench, trying to determine what exactly was bothering him this evening.

It wasn't Diane. She was a nice lady--pretty lady, but he didn't think of her that way most of the time. She was also a competent officer who seemed to care about the people around her, and that was more important than anything else to Sean. He'd seen fellow guards as worn down by the hopelessness and brutality of prison life as the inmates themselves were. He'd also seen some that were so removed from the men they were guarding, that they became little more than zookeepers, keeping the animals in their cages at all costs. Then there were those who got involved....

And that's what was bothering him, he realized. He'd had another conversation with Ryan O'Reilly that seemed to last just a little too long, and feel just a little too personal. Sean knew better than to emotionally invest anything in an inmate. He'd been good-naturedly accused of being too compassionate a couple of times, but he didn't think it was compassion so much as a need to remember that the prisoners didn't check their humanity at the door. Some of them did act like animals, but there were plenty more who were just trying to serve out their sentence by getting through each day emotionally and physically intact.

And then there were those like Ryan O'Reilly, ruthless in his survival but cunning enough not to get caught--most of the time. While he knew O'Reilly most likely did plenty of things he never got caught for, Sean still questioned whether he'd done the right thing by letting Ryan off the hook for the spritzer spiking incident. He'd felt incredibly foolish for feeling betrayed by Ryan's actions, and he'd let him go, keeping the secret and wondering... How could he have cut the man so much slack? Was it that odd feeling of brotherhood that he'd felt almost immediately upon meeting Ryan? Was it his understanding of Ryan's motives in protecting his brother? Or was it something else, like the attraction that had sparked the first time Ryan had given Sean his undivided attention?

Was it his desire to give Ryan something more than boxing advice? Something highly inappropriate? Not that Sean would ever do it, of course, but he did have thoughts...feelings...that were so incredibly misplaced that it frightened him to think that he might actually be tempted to give in to them someday. Maybe sometime Ryan would lean toward him and speak to him in that low smoky voice he used when he was trying to persuade Sean to see things his way, and Sean would realize that they were alone. There would be nothing to stop Sean from taking what Ryan seemed almost unaware of offering. There would be nothing to stop Sean... except Sean. He knew right from wrong, and what he was thinking was wrong. Very wrong.

Not because he'd been taught so by the Church. With all due respect to the Pope, Father Mukada, and Father Lloyd, his own parish priest, Sean had come to an understanding with God on homosexuality a long time ago. He didn't fear eternal damnation for whom he chose to love or sleep with, but life on earth could become pretty hellish if he didn't watch his step.

The prisoners were off limits. Period. The rules were simple and easy to understand. No fucking in Emerald City, and no sexual contact between CO's and inmates at all, _anywhere_. The imbalance of power, the potential for manipulation... _everything_ made it a Bad Idea. And Sean refused to give in to the pull of shifty green eyes and a wounded heart. That would be a Very Bad Idea of career-ending proportions.

So what was left?

Sean slammed his own door shut and left the empty locker room. He said goodbye to the officer at the door and walked to his car. It was the same as every other night since he'd started working at Oz, but something was also different. Or maybe it was just he who was different. Empty and needing, resigned to living with impossible fantasies always just out of reach, yet right in his face, taunting him with their impossibility.

Sitting in the driver's seat, Sean knew he could go home to his empty apartment and continue to brood, or he could go out somewhere. Have dinner, a few drinks, maybe meet someone... the distraction of meaningless sex was a tempting lure. He knew a couple of bars...

After a moment, he pulled the seldom-used cell phone out of the glove box and dialed a number, smiling when he got an answer on the first ring. "Hey Danny, you free for dinner?"

After a brief conversation, Sean pushed the end button and put the phone away with a real smile. His older brother grounded him quicker than anything else in this world ever did. By the time they were sipping their after-dinner coffee, Sean would be back on an even keel, and Ryan O'Reilly would be just another prisoner.

He hoped.

 

Meanwhile back in Emerald City:

Locked inside his pod with Cyril for the night, Ryan O'Reilly flipped through a travel book with a distinct lack of interest. The book claimed that you could travel across Europe on seventy-five cents a day. But since it had been published the same year Ryan was born, he had his doubts whether it was much use. He wondered where the library got such crap, as he tossed the book on his bunk and went to stand at the door.

Cyril started talking, but Ryan paid little attention to his brother once he realized he'd heard the story about a dozen times already. He stared blindly through the glass and wondered what Murphy was doing right now. Wondered what the hack did when he left Oz each night. He could be married for all Ryan knew, so maybe he went home to the wife and kids and never gave this place another thought.

Murphy probably went home to a nice little house with a picket fence and a lawn that he mowed on his days off. A cocker spaniel, golden retriever, or maybe a basset hound would meet him at the door, barking its stupid head off, while the kids rushed up to tell Daddy all about their day. There'd be a girl and a boy. The little girl would be blonde and perky like her mother. The boy would be a Black Irish rascal like his father. The wife--Mrs. Murphy--would be cooking dinner, and she'd bring him cold beer in a glass, while he kicked back in his big plush recliner and turned on the evening news.

The whole picture in Ryan's head was like one of those old TV shows he and Cyril used to watch after school on their pathetic little black and white set that only got a picture if you tilted the wire coat hanger just _so_. He knew that reality was rarely like television, but the images were planted deep in his subconscious as some ideal that _other_ people--people like Murphy--could have. Never Ryan and Cyril and the rest of the O'Reillys, but knowing that didn't stop him from feeling envious and a bit resentful, because at least Murphy got to leave this hellhole, and have a beer and a woman and anything else he wanted.

Or maybe old Murphy had a more bachelor type existence. He didn't wear a wedding ring, so maybe he went home to an empty apartment. Maybe he drank beer from the can and ate TV dinners that were only a notch above the crap Ryan had to serve in the cafeteria. Maybe he sat in an ugly plaid easy chair dotted with cigarette burns and duct tape on the arms, watching the news on an old television set that he inherited from his parents. And if he wanted a woman, he'd have to go out to a bar somewhere and try to sweet-talk some chick, lay on some of that Irish charm, tell her some of those stories and legends he knew.

Ryan's thoughts came to a stuttering halt as he tried to picture Murphy flirting with a woman. He couldn't really imagine the moves and the lines Murphy might use--he couldn't quite get past the smile. He almost laughed as he realized the smile was probably enough for Murphy.

Before Gloria, who'd almost fallen for him until he'd gone too far and had her husband killed, Ryan used to be good at charming women. He'd enjoyed the thrill of the chase at least as much as catching them.

But Ryan was never going to do that again. Never going down to the neighborhood pub to drink a beer, flirt a little with whatever woman happened to be there, do a little business in the back room... He wanted to hate Murphy for having what Ryan didn't, but he couldn't. Not really. All he could do was take each day as it came and use Murphy whatever way he could in his ongoing attempts to take care of Cyril and survive.

He hoped.

The End.


End file.
